


The White Horse

by Unoriginality



Series: The Horsemen [1]
Category: Marvel, Thor - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2679806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unoriginality/pseuds/Unoriginality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A plague crept into Asgard, and only Loki was immune.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The White Horse

_"The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy and barbarous attire. While his horse continued galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs of all diseases."_  
-Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

 

**Summer**

Loki typically got sick during the hottest weeks of summer, the ground burning with heat, even the grass too warm to be a refuge from the brutal sun.

But this year, it was not him that got sick, but all of Asgard.

The plague crept in on the breath of the wind, on the backs of the fauna, in their fleas, in their saliva, in their feces and anything else they could use to infect the population. It started in the lower classes, and slowly worked its way up until even the royals were caught.

Except Loki.

He assumed it had to do with his heritage; as much as he resented it, it sometimes proved useful, a family secret though it was. While the Asgardian race and the Vanir race suffered from fever and wet coughs, Loki remained free of illness, barring his usual fatigue that came with the heat.

He searched Asgard for the cure. He found nothing.

**Fall**

The plague was a slow killer. It took agonizing weeks to die from it, and the healing room was helpless to stop it, no matter what they did to isolate the virus. It was something new, something no one could understand. They asked Loki to be tested for his immunity, but he declined, not at all gracefully, but his secret couldn't get out.

As autumn hit, people finally started to die off, escaping the pain of the illness.

Of the royals, Odin was first to go. The family mourned as best they could, with Loki and Thor still responsible for their mother, who had perhaps gotten hit harder than Odin had. Odin was just older with a poorer immune system.

Then Thor took ill, leaving just Loki.

Then in late fall, the illness stole the breath of their beloved mother, and the level of grief that landed on Loki's shoulders as he told his ill brother the sad news was almost ecstatic, a level of passionate feelings that seemed only capable by Loki.

So with his parents both sent off to the great stars, Loki tended to the only family he had left.

**Winter**

With the cold, the illness spread to everyone in Asgard, until it seemed Loki was the only one not ill. As the cold slowed down breathing, heartbeats, attacked immune systems until there was no one in the healing room to help fight at least the symptoms so that death would come more comfortably.

Loki remained healthy.

Even when Thor succumbed and passed on.

Asgard was left to his care, not that there was much to care for anymore. 

The kingdom fell into twilight, the royals gone save one, one last remaining healthy person alive. Nobody was free of it. Everyone was infected.

Slowly, people died off and the stars began to dim.

And winter held its grip on the kingdom.

**Spring**

There was no one left by the time the early hints of spring came about. Just Loki in an empty palace, ruler over a dead realm.

He packed his few personal weapons, took Gungnir and headed for the bifrost. Heimdall was gone, they were all gone.

Loki didn't know if the virus was still active, or if it'd die with the rest of the population, but he didn't dare leave it to chance. So summoning all his strength, all his power as a Jotun, a force of nature, he pushed forward with his might. The waterfall froze, ice traveling and stopping the flow of the water all the way up to the boundaries of the houses and palace that his family once called home. Frost climbed the walls, until the very highest tower glimmered with ice and snow as the skies clouded over and wept bitter, frozen tears.

Spring would no longer come to Asgard. Not until Loki returned to open the icy tomb.

With his homeland sleeping, he turned and left.


End file.
